Menu please

I missed an opportunity last week; one that may not come my way again if things don’t change. I could have and should have gone out to eat for one of those big “hungry man” breakfasts, the kind where you get a couple eggs, sausage or bacon, hash brown potatoes, some toast (with jelly), maybe some pancakes, a glass of juice and a cup of coffee. After one of those you can skip lunch, maybe even supper and use the extra time for something else – like taking a nap. It could have been like the last meal they give to the condemned.

It’s too late now; a reordering of my menu has been called for. I have been advised to go on a low-fat, no-fun diet. Apparently, I was killing myself with my dietary decisions. Last week I went to the doctor for my annual physical. As part of the arrangement it is assumed that I will submit to some rather unpleasant probes and prods by the practitioner. In addition, blood was drawn and tested for the existence and absence of all manner of things.

The results came in a couple days ago. Of the four categories, I am outside all the accepted boundaries of where “they” say I should be. Nothing alarming mind you; however, the nurse did ask if I had a health-care directive.

So now to survive another 48 years I have to eat the “right” foods. From what I read from “the list” this means, among other things, to decrease or eliminate sweets. Soda is listed as an example. Why anyone would eat baking soda is less puzzling than why it’s listed as a sweet. Oh well, check that off the list.

Candy is also on the list. That’s an easy one to give up since I don’t really like hard candy anyway, especially the sour stuff. I didn’t see chocolate, so I guess that must be O.K. I’ve heard some good things about dark chocolate, so I’ll load up on that instead.

Refined carbohydrates were mentioned as something to avoid. Refined anything sounds rather cultured and high-brow for my mid-west palate. I lean towards the simple, some would even say unsavory tastes. Give me a loaf of bread, a plate of noodles, a quart of chocolate milk, and I am as happy as I can be.

Further down towards the end of the list omega-3 fatty acids were brought up. I guess I missed the first two of the heavy-set Greek acids. Anyway, I thought I was supposed to avoid fat. Now I am told to consume fatty fish twice a week. Sounds like a good opportunity to visit a nice seafood restaurant – doctor’s orders. Other foods high in omega-3 fatness are walnuts (they taste great in brownies) and dark leafy green vegetables. I like them in a salad generously topped with croutons and French dressing.

Next, to confuse me even more, I am told high fat meats are off the table, but fat fish can be the catch-of-the-day twice a week. Meats with a high fat content include lunchmeats, hot dogs and variety meats (you don’t want to know what that is).

It is suggested that I reach and maintain a healthy weight. That won’t be too tough on this diet. If not for that fat fish, I would waste away to nothing. Now if I only start exercising on a regular basis everything will be OK. I am already planning my celebratory meal. I should be pretty hungry by then, hungry enough for a man’s size breakfast. I like my bacon crunchy, if you don’t mind.

Just A Few More Minutes

Blame it on November – the darkest, grayest, most depressing month there is. This is my second in a series on old men who have died recently. My own father died on a November day several years ago. Andy Rooney, the man who shared a few minutes with us at the end of the CBS show “60 minutes,” died Friday. The clock finally ran out for him.

Mr. Rooney (I didn’t really know him well enough to call him Andy) had just retired a few weeks ago at the age of 92. Maybe he should have kept working, but I guess if you are going to retire, 92 seems better than 52.

Some people retire at 52. In Cambodia and Thailand early retirement is thought to be about 50, compared to 62 in the United States. I got this from the computer site Wikipedia. That sounds like a made-up name to me.

I don’t like made-up names, or even made-up words for that matter. We have plenty of good words and names that still have some life left in them. The problem with making up words is that there are no rules, traditions of usage or historical origins to give them any validity or experience.

In Greece and Italy, the early retirement age is 57. From what I read in the newspapers, people in those two European countries want to retire even earlier. I guess that will work as long as there are enough people who will work to support them.

I don’t understand the need to retire early. I think it is more of an indicator of someone working at a job they don’t like. Perhaps what they need is a different job instead.

Plenty of people have worked in their advanced years. Billy Graham is still active and he’s 93. Grandma Moses started painting when she was 78. Ronald Reagan was in his 70’s when he was president. Moses was 40years old when he led the Israelites out of Egypt, but it wasn’t until he was 80 that God gave him the Ten Commandments. I guess God wanted to wait until Moses got old enough to handle such a big responsibility.

My own grandfather worked in a lumber yard until he was 85. He took the job after he moved to town from the farm. I guess he wanted to “slow down”. When I was 16 we unloaded a railroad car together. I had trouble keeping up with him, as he hadn’t “slowed down” yet.

Some people retire so they can take it easy. Some just want to fish or play golf everyday. I don’t have anything against these things, I just don’t like to do them. I think it would get kind of boring after a while. A person needs a reason to get out of bed in the morning. Something tells me that Andy Rooney had his reason.

Thanks for not retiring early Mr. Rooney. But could we have just a few more minutes? Please Andy.

Port of Call

I first met Luvern Hinz at the home of my brother-in-law, Rick and his wife Melissa. On that day Luvern generously shared his bottle of port with me – nothing excessive, just a glass. Over that glass of wine was where I met a real-life George Bailey. Bedord Falls, the town in the Christmas classic “It’s a Wonderful Life,” was better because George Bailey had been there. Kimball, Minnesota was better because Luvern Hinz had been there.

Kimball is a small town in central Minnesota, and for over 90 years of his life, Luvern called it home. He died on October 20, one month short of his 97th birthday. Luvern was the grandfather of Rick’s wife, Melissa. I didn’t know him well, but I am blessed to have known him at all.

If not for extended family gatherings I would have never met him. If pressed, I would tell you that I am not a fan of these kinds of things. These family affairs will often have people seeking security by remaining huddled in familiar groups. Separated from each other across the room, any polite interaction between strangers hinges on a brave, yet awkward first step. I will usually find a seat in a corner where I can observe the unscripted play unfold with clumsy interaction between the characters.

Except one time several years ago I sat on a couch next to Luvern. I knew he was Melissa’s grandfather, but up until then I had not taken the time to talk with him. I have found over the years that the older folks have the most to offer. They have life experiences, stories, and wisdom to share. All you have to do is ask.

My first question to him was prompted by the dark liquid in his glass.

“What are you drinking?” I asked him.

“Port,” he replied.

“Port?” I said.

He then told me about how his wife had suffered from stomach trouble, so he picked up a bottle of port one day with the hope that this would settle her stomach. After having success with his home remedy, he and his wife would have a glass of wine together every evening thereafter; and even though she has been gone over 20 years he still has his glass of wine.

“Would you like a glass?” he offered.

“Absolutely,” I said as I sailed over to the cabinet and grabbed a suitable drinking vessel for Luvern’s port.

I found him very easy to talk to. Assuming that a man of his age was retired I asked him what he had done for work in his younger years. This was when I learned the value one man can bring a community. Without boasting, he talked about how he had worked at a grocery store, which he later purchased. He had built the town’s first bowling alley and a self-serve car wash. He had also delivered milk from a horse-drawn wagon.

In addition, I found out that he loved to golf; I would have loved to golf with him, but no one likes to get beat by a 95-year old man. It wasn’t until after he died that I learned just how amazing this man was. Most of this information I got from the obituary notice provided by the Dingmann Funeral Home in Kimball.

Luvern had served in the US Navy, and he, along with several other people, started the Kimball Golf Club. He had been on the city council, the school board, past commander of the Kimball American Legion, and had been a member of the Kimball Fire department, where he had served as chief. Plus, he found time to plant trees in a local park and build bluebird houses.

No one would have criticized him if he had completed just one activity. It would have been less risky, but as William G.T. Shedd said “A ship is safe in harbor, but that’s not what ships are for.”

Luvern didn’t stand at the dock and wait for his ship to come in; instead he worked hard and shared the fruits of his labor with his home port of Kimball.

According to the obituary, “Luvern loved his friends, his family and Kimball.” Every town should be so fortunate to have such a man.

It's all about latitude

I’m willing to adjust my attitude from time to time and try new things. I took off for a weekend this month just to try and do geocaching. If that looks like a made up word to you, well you’re right it is. It combines two word: geo (Greek), meaning “of the earth,” and cache (French), which is a temporary hiding place.

Geocaching incorporates concepts of older games with modern technology. It has elements of “Hide and Seek,” a scavenger hunt, and the old “you’re getting warmer… warmer…colder…warmer…warmer” game of finding a hidden something or other. In geocaching the clues to find the hidden object are longitude and latitude coordinates, such as N 43 (degrees) 31.577’and W 92 (degrees) 30.946’.

Using global positioning satellites or GPS technology the seeker enters the coordinates into a GPS device. Many people use an expensive portable device that gives directional help, but a smart phone can also be used if you are not smart enough to remember bring the expensive toy with you. Either one lets you know if you are getting closer (warmer) or further away (colder).

There is no shortage of places to mess around with geocaching. Hundreds of thousands people participate in it every year all over the Earth (or geo if you prefer). So it was just a matter of time before I was forced to check it out.

Up until recently I was able to stay in the truck while others scurried about trying to locate hidden treasure. But this time an entire weekend was devoted to geocaching in Minnesota state parks.

When the idea was first presented for my consideration I carelessly said, “I don’t care where I go, I care where I stay.” You see I like traveling I just don’t like camping. I thought if that message was communicated clear enough I could have a relaxing weekend spent in a hotel somewhere reading and relaxing while others chased wild geese. Once again I didn’t ask enough questions.

There are over 70 state parks and recreation areas in Minnesota and each one has at least one hidden treasure waiting to be found using GPS technology. The goal is to find the official cache at all the parks within a certain time period. A local teacher and his wife were the first ones to complete that task in Minnesota.

The modern-day treasure hunters collect stamps, patches and pins when a certain number of these state-sponsored caches have been found. My daughter Jennifer and her husband Adam have taken up the task of visiting all 73 state parks. So recently she and her mother conspired to involve the whole family.

In two days, traveling over 450 miles, we stopped in at eight state parks; fun for the whole family. We shared trails with horses, climbed hundreds of stairs, scampered up rocky cliffs, traversed ravines, forded streams, explored caves, island hopped and made our presence known in a ghost town.

I think the state of Minnesota is using geocaching as a device to introduce people to the state parks. I was at parks that I had never heard of. All eight parks that we visited were beautiful and each had its own unique identity. I can see why some people like this kind of thing.

Geocaching wouldn’t be my first choice, but you have to participate in the activities that are important to your friends and family. My global position is not one of resistance to change and trying new things. I may not always like it but I try to have fun with it. It’s like what Jimmy Buffet said.

It’s these changes in latitudes, changes in attitudes
Nothing remains quite the same
With all of our running and all of our cunning
If we couldn’t laugh we would all go insane

Dad's Chair

I guess I’m not much of a furniture person. It doesn’t matter if it matches or looks right, but I need a chair. In most homes with a man in residence there is a special chair; his chair. There he relaxes after a hard day; from there he exercises his authority. Women may have their own chair as well, but they seldom sit in it; I’m not sure why. I guess it’s because they are too busy … doing stuff.

Therein lies the problem. Just because women don’t take the time to sit down, doesn’t mean that men won’t. I don’t think my wife, Rhonda, fully appreciates why I need a good chair to call my own. I didn’t realize this until a series of events unfolded in my house over the course of a couple days.

One of Rhonda’s friends brought over a chair she was no longer using. No harm there, as we have plenty of storage room in our buildings and I have extra tarps. I had almost forgotten about the chair when on the eve of the third day Rhonda had me come out to look at it.

Something about it didn’t sit quite right with me, but I couldn’t figure out what it was. The color was rather nondescript (as most colors are to me). At Rhonda’s urging I sat in it. It was comfortable enough, but it lacked something.

She asked if I needed help in carrying it to the garage. Did you catch it? Hidden within her question was also a directive: she wanted the chair in the garage and eventually the house. That was already decided. The offer to help me carry the chair was merely a ploy to advance her agenda. I let it slide.

I was able to carry it myself with little difficulty, which should have been a big clue as to why I wasn’t thrilled about this chair. The next step took very little time, but it was an important one. When the new chair came into the house it replaced my chair.

My chair – the chair from where I caught up with my papers, watched movies with my children, fell asleep, meted out justice, delivered wise counsel, and solved the problems of the day.

Well, it could be replaced I suppose, with the right substitute. My chair had become worn and the color had fallen out of fashion. When I sat down in my usual spot the shortcomings of this substitute became obvious. It certainly wasn’t too big, and it wasn’t just right. It had been built for either a child or a woman.

“This chair is too small,” I growled.

I should have noticed it before it came into the house – but without the proper perspective I didn’t realize how inadequate this new chair was. It was narrow and low and its arms were bony and weak. There was no way I could be the man of the house in this chair.

If a man’s home is his castle, then his chair must be his throne. I was at risk of being abdicated, overthrown. As far as I know, my father never had this problem.

Dad had his chair, and it was his whenever he wanted it. A simple look or a subtle gesture would displace anyone who occupied it. Often it didn’t match the carpet, the drapes or any piece of furniture in the neighborhood, but that didn’t matter.

It was positioned so that Dad could monitor both the TV and the outside world without moving his head. From the comfort of his chair he ruled.

“What are we watching?” “Quiet, I want to listen to the weather.” “Where are you off to?”

And when he fell asleep after a long day Mom would bravely touch him and say, “Why don’t you go to bed Tom?”

Dad wouldn’t have put up with such nonsense so I didn’t either. I got my old chair back. Except for my chair, furniture is really not that important to me, so does that make me a chairman?

Until next year

I tilled the garden this weekend – not once, but twice. The first was to grind this year’s remains into the ground. The second time was to add about 10 bags of leaves to the soil. These leaves were special – you might even say imported. They were a gift from my daughter, Jennifer, who lives in town with her new husband Adam.

Growing up in the country Jennifer rarely had to rake leaves. Out here on the farm we use the mow and blow method: chop the leaves up with the mower and let the wind take them when and where it wishes. But that method of yard work is frowned upon in town, so she and Adam bagged up the leaves that had fallen on their yard and generously shared them with me.

When they had completed their end of the bargain I went to town and picked up the bulging bags. At home I quickly spread the leaves on the freshly cultivated soil. I had to hurry, less the gift to the garden would blow away to parts unknown.

Jennifer used to work the farm garden with her mother – now she has her own smaller plot in town. So this year I was a “husbandman,” an old term meaning farmer, gardener. So I helped my wife in the harvesting of tomatoes and carrots to empty the ground before the tillage. As the Lord says, “The harvest is plentiful, but the laborers are few.”

Before I modernized with a tiller powered by the tractor I used to have what is commonly referred to as a walk-behind tiller. But walking suggests a peaceful pastime, and that does not describe my former tiller. Instead it handled like a team of wild horses trying to escape. A rear leaning 45-degree stance was required to engage the tiller in battle. By the end of a leisurely day in the garden my forearms were like rocks, my back was shot and my legs quivered with fatigue.

But turning over soil has become an easy chore since I purchased an attachment for my tractor. I call it a tractor because that’s what it is, but Mary, Mary quite contrary, my tractor looks like a toy next to real farm tractors. So I guess I’m playing farmer.

True, I live in an old farm house and have a barn, but I am not a farmer – I do not possess their massive machinery or skills.

The farmers in the area are busy. Their trucks and tractors pulling wagons go back and forth on the normally quiet avenue. The combines with their bean heads raise dust in the fields and on the roads as they reap what they have sown. Soon they will come back outfitted to collect the corn. They will be gone soon, along with the 80-degree October days. I wave as they pass.

The 80-degree plus days in August are normal and expected, so I take them for granted and think about cooler times. But in this clime, those temperatures in October are rare and fleeting, so I soak up the sunshine as I go about my business. If I knew it was the last time I would see such warmth for six months or more I may treat the day differently.

I can find contentment in a day spent reading and writing, but as the old saying goes, “A man of words and not of deeds is like a garden full of weeds.” Land must be turned, garden hoses and pumps have to be drained and put away, and snow removal equipment must be made ready.

So I toil in the soil and make provisions for the cold. The garden has been put to bed and patiently awaits the heavy blanket of snow that will surely come. Till next year.

It Stings

Buddy, the dog, doesn’t like bees; he tries to bite them. I don’t mind them; I understand their purpose: to pollinate and produce honey. I also know they can sting, but I accept that as part of the trade-off.

However, I am much less tolerant with wasps, hornets and other members of their swarm. I understand they are considered useful by those in the know, such as the University of Minnesota Extension office.

“Wasps are predators, feeding insects and other arthropods to their young…They are beneficial because they prey on many insects... Some wasps may become aggressive scavengers around human food… Nests that are near human activity can pose a potential problem. If there is a concern about stings, you should eradicate the nest.”

They suggest that you wait until nightfall to attack. One method is to “cover the nest with a large, heavy, plastic bag and seal it shut. Cut the nest from the tree and freeze it or let the bag sit in the sun, which will kill the wasps inside in a day or two. Use caution: there is more risk involved in this procedure than in spraying the nest.”

Uh-huh. It seems to me that if you were unsuccessful you have only made a bad situation much worse. If they were aggressive before, they are sure to have revenge on their minds now. I have trouble with zip-lock baggies so I am going to avoid that method.

I like spraying them with an insecticide from a safe distance of two yards (mine and my neighbors). I think someone should invent a predator drone for home use. They seem to be working very well in the “war on terror” or “overseas contingency operations” or whatever the phrase of the day is.

I would buy one of those to avoid getting stung. I think most people would. I also think most people want to avoid the sting of paying more taxes than is legally required of them. But, there are always exceptions.

For instance, Doug Edwards, a retired millionaire and former Google employee, was an invited audience member of a town hall meeting held recently in California. He asked President Obama, “Would you please raise my taxes?”

I agree, please raise Mr. Edwards taxes. But I don’t think he meant just his, because anyone who felt that they weren’t paying “their fair share,” has an easy solution. Simply send the government a check.

According to http://www.fms.treas.gov/faq/moretopics_gifts.html, a U.S. Treasury website, “Citizens who wish to make a general donation to the U.S. government may send contributions to a specific account called "Gifts to the United States." They even give you the address to make it easy.

Warren Buffet, a zillionaire doesn’t think it’s right that his tax rate is lower than his secretary’s. Well, I don’t think it’s right that his company, Berkshire Hathaway, has owed the IRS one billion dollars since 2002.

But don’t take my word for it. Various websites (Newsmax, The Huffington Post) are running a story that a group called Americans for Limited Government (ALG) has said that Berkshire Hathaway’s own annual report indicated the company is embroiled in an ongoing standoff over its tax bills. This was also included in an editorial in The New York Post.

I have talked to people who state that “they proudly pay their taxes,” or that “it’s their patriotic duty.” OK, is if this is true let’s raise the bar. How proud and patriotic do you want to be? At what level do taxes become too much?

I can imagine other requests from concerned citizens to follow: Please audit me, please seize my property, increase the assessed value of my home, draft me, arrest me, deport me, enslave me, take away my constitutional rights. Please take away my economic freedom.

When it comes to taxes I pay my fair share with as much pride and patriotism as I can muster. I am not stingy, but I’d like to know why there is this new intensity to pay more to the government, because if you take away the why I am left with a sting.